The Wrath Of Herugrim
by A.H. Jenkins
Summary: “You do not fully understand the mind of Master Wormtongue. He is bold and cunning.” – Book Three, The Lord Of The Rings


Title: The Wrath Of Herugrim  
  
Pairing: Grima/Eowyn  
  
Rating: PG  
  
Summary: "You do not fully understand the mind of Master Wormtongue. He is bold and cunning." - Book Three, The Lord Of The Rings  
  
Disclaimer: The characters herein belong to JRR Tolkien and all rights are held by Tolkien Enterprises and Harper Collins Publishers amongst others. No copyright infringement is intended. Everything is Tolkien's except the plot, which belongs to me. Author's Notes: Pre-Gandalf interference, Grima reflects on his love for Eowyn and his position in life. Please do not be confused - this is book fanfiction, not film fanfiction. Théoden is not so helpless as he seems in the film - although that lack of mobility is one interpretation.  
  
Grima was not a heartless man by nature; he merely encountered circumstances in which his loyalties required him to be heartless. He had feelings, just as any other man, and being a man wished frequently for the chance to act upon them. For Grima, there was no such luck. His eye fell only upon that of the King's niece, Eowyn, a beauty too pure for compare. Grima sighed at the very thought of her. In the darkness of his chamber, when he asked himself if he truly stood a chance with such a beauty, he would close off, instead choosing to drown his sorrows and despairs in the hope that his new master would help him to greatness, and to the love that he so truly deserved.  
  
He worried greatly about the condition of his lord. Théoden was not so strong now as he was, but he was still living, though not always by himself. It was a queer sort of schizophrenia that overtook Théoden, and it was of Grima's making. Too long did he toil over the complications of controlling not one, but two persons. Time wasted on thought. Time he could have spent in pursuit of his fair Eowyn.fairest of the maidens of Rohan. His path for now, however, lay with keeping the King safe in his cage of imperious control, under the ever-watchful eye of the darkness that stretched out above him. Perhaps, though, Grima could allow himself a moment of indulgence, and let his thoughts stray to that of the fair, cool demeanour of Eowyn.  
  
Some, those who Grima considered blind, would say she was pretty. Grima knew far better - he saw her intense beauty, begging to blossom, hidden only by her innocence in age. He knew that he could not hurry her, no, that would be like asking the sun to rise before dawn. He longed to brush a hand across her pale cheek, take a strand of hair from it and push it softly behind her ear. To push his lips against hers and feel her gasp at the contact, yes, that was what Grima wanted. He wanted someone to care, but also someone to hold. Someone who wouldn't flinch at his touch.  
  
Grima was the child who had never known love, never known what feelings one could show for another, until he had seen her face. Eowyn had taught him, though no conscious lessons of her own, that there is beauty in the world, and where there is beauty that there must be compassion also, and feelings. Feelings, pure and aching and needing to be revealed. Grima restrained, fearing her brother Eomer, but secretly harboured his lust for one single kiss.  
  
One single kiss from the lips of an angel, and Grima would not need another moment on the earth. To know love, even for one fraction of a second, to know love at all would satisfy him. A warning voice in the back of his head told him that this was the sign of a man lost forever in his own isolation. To fear a cage is one thing - to be a cage, well, that was another entirely. He loved her, loved her so much that one might as well have wrenched his heart from his very chest.but Grima knew she would never love him. That was why he turned to darkness to seek out his power to get what he desired. Perhaps it would never be real love.but it was enough to convince the ill-favoured mind of what it thought it had.  
  
For now, Grima entertained fantasies of bewitching her at night, on the balcony of her bower while all the house was asleep. He would kiss her tenderly at first, wrapping a protective arm around her slender waist and pulling her close to him. She would comply, resting a hand on his chest and the other around his own waist. He would run his free hand through her hair and pull her head back, kissing her deeper and letting go of her hair to trail his hand softly down her neck and over the edge of her breast before leaving it on her stomach. He would turn her round and bring her close to his chest, whispering his love for her in her ear and kissing the soft skin between her neck and shoulder while she brushed her no longer cold hands across his arms, crossed over her waist and holding her protectively to him. And then she would raise one of those delicate hands to his cheek, and turn to him and whisper her love before the whistling banner of the Mark, and she would be his, to have and to hold no matter who or what may oppose them.  
  
These were dark days, and even the lowliest of men must, after all, have their glimmers of hope. 


End file.
